Top Ten Reasons To Choose A Web Hosting Provider
November 10th, 2011
Choosing a web hosting provider is different for each person. Each website has a specific set of needs and you should find a web host that provides specific requirements for your web site.
However, there are certain things to look for when choosing a web hosting service. In this article I will give you the ten most common things people should look for. This is not necessarily in order of priority, because like I said every website has different needs and priorities may not match the owner of the next site.
1. Tech Support: Tech support in any business venture is always important. As a website owner though, the technical support you provide web-hosting will be important to your business. If your website is offline or not functioning properly then it will cost you sales.
If you have purchased traffic to your website and it goes offline, you will still be charged for all visits to your website, which they never saw. The money you spend on your ad campaign, AdWords program or other source of traffic will be right in vain. You are not able to choose a web host that does not respond quickly when you have a problem.
2. Feedback Forum: A web host that provides a forum, message boards, or chat room to discuss hosting issues or to get help are more likely to get users to use their web hosting services. The reason behind this is people feel more comfortable with a web host that provides the personal touch and one who cared enough to provide a higher level of service.
3. Room to Grow: If your web hosting service only offers one package, it’s a bad sign in most cases. What happens as your web business grows and so does your web hosting needs? If they offer upgrades to dedicated servers, larger storage and bandwidth plans, and many other options, then you can feel confident choosing them as a web hosting provider. You do not plan to stay small and your web host does not have to plan for you to stay small either.
4. Storage Space: This is usually only a problem with a website that will offer users a lot of downloads such as music or software. The average website can get by with about 10 megabytes of storage, but again you want room to grow, plus you can actually use your storage to back up files from your computer. Do not backup secure documents there, but many of your files can be backed up online. You have storage so use it. More storage space they offer, the better.
5. Bandwidth or Transfer: This is the size of each of your website visitors to download files automatically to their computers every time they visit. Web pages average around 30k and then you add graphics and other files that are displayed to the user and you get your bandwidth or transfer usage. The average website can get by on less than 10 gigabytes of bandwidth per month. However, if you offer downloads such as software, music, and movies, or you’ll drive more traffic to your site, you may want to choose a plan that offers more bandwidth. Make sure your webhosting provider has options that give you room to grow here as well.
6. Easy to use Control Panel: Cpanel is one of the most popular control panel for web hosts to offer, but there are others. Ask what type of control panel your web host offers to provide you with. Again, this requirement is different for each person and is based on your skill level. Some advanced users prefer to not have or do not care about control panels because they know how to configure everything on the server itself. Less advanced users should ensure that they are choosing a web hosting service that provides a simple interface so they can feel comfortable making changes that they need for their website.
7. FrontPage extensions: Many people who do not know HTML still use FrontPage or other programs to design their websites. If you are using FrontPage, you need to make sure your web host is configured for FrontPage extensions.
8. Type of Servers: An example of this is the website to be built using ASP .. NET framework or For your website, you will need to ensure that the web host you have a windows based server. Most web hosting provider on Linux or Apache and ASP websites will not work on them. A better option is to stay away from building a website that requires a Windows server in the first place.
9. Added Features: Instant Install is a feature offered by most web hosts these days even if they call it another name. This is an automated process to install the database and database driven features you can add to your site such as photo galleries, forums, blogs, content management systems, calendars, guestbooks, and more. It’s just as easy to choose a web hosting provider that gives you this feature if you need them as it is to choose one that does. Again, room to grow is important.
10. Does your web host a good neighborhood: This one is a little more difficult to explain and find out about but is important. Some search engines penalize sites that are in a bad neighborhood. They do this by banning websites that come from a set of specific IP addresses because of previous problems with the website on an IP address. You need to see examples of other websites provided by your web hosting service. If many of them are warez sites, porn sites, file sharing sites, or other websites whose activities do not seem tasty, then you will probably see a bad neighborhood and may want to look for another web host.
That’s my top 10 tips for choosing a web hosting service. I hope you find these tips helpful when you are looking for a place to host your next website!
Categories: Web Host Elite Articles
